Tag Archives: Whitby fishermen
Mass shellfish deaths off Whitby area coastline to be probed in Government’s new hearing – Middlesbrough Council ‘absolutely on board’
The Government’s Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee is to probe the deaths of large numbers of crustaceans off the coast over the past year in a hearing at the House of Commons on Tuesday October 25. ERFA previously blamed algal bloom as the cause of the deaths, but an independent probe carried out recently pointed towards dredging and the chemical pyridine being the most likely cause, with some Whitby fishermen calling for the dredging of the Tees to halt. >click to read< Middlesbrough Council ‘absolutely on board’ with joint probe planned into crustacean deaths – Councillor Mick Saunders, chairman of Middlesbrough Council’s overview and scrutiny board, said: “Absolutely we are on board, I think there’s more to come out really, more than what the Government has been saying. Meanwhile, self-employed Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie, a member of the North East Fishing Collective (NEFC), has said fishermen are in a “desperate position” with half of the town’s shellfish fleet lost in the past year. >click to read< 08:30
Whitby fishermen – ‘We demand that future dredging operations be halted’
The investigation, commissioned by the North East Fishing Collective, was looking experimentally at the impact of pyridine on crabs, which could have been released by dredging, saying it was the most likely killer of the crustaceans. Fishing businesses and livelihoods around the Whitby coastline, from Teesside down to Scarborough, have been severely impacted, with the amount of crab on traditional fishing grounds decimated. James Cole, Chairman of Whitby Commercial Fishing Association, said: “We demand that future dredging operations be halted until proven beyond doubt that no harmful pollutants will enter our environment and fishing grounds. >click to read< 08:55
